Boundaries of semantic distraction: dominance and lexicality act at retrieval

Marsh, John

University of Gävle, Faculty of Engineering and Sustainable Development, Department of Building, Energy and Environmental Engineering, Environmental psychology. School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, Darwin Building, Preston, Lancashire, United Kingdom.

Abstract [en]

Three experiments investigated memory for semantic information with the goal of determining boundary conditions for the manifestation of semantic auditory distraction. Irrelevant speech disrupted the free recall of semantic category- exemplars to an equal degree regardless of whether the speech coincided with presentation or test phases of the task (Experiment 1), and this occurred regardless ofwhether it comprised random words or coherent sentences (Experiment 2). The effects of background speech were greater when the irrelevant speech was semantically related to the to-be-remembered material, but only when the irrelevant words were high in output dominance (Experiment 3). The implications of these findings in relation to the processing of task material and the processing ofbackground speech are discussed.